With low power consumption and excellent graphic performance from the APUs, both AM1M-A and AM1I-A are great-value choices for desktops and home-theater PCs (HTPCs).

AM1M-A and AM1I-A have been engineered to the very highest quality standards and are packed with exclusive features, as ASUS customers both demand and expect.

ASUS 5X Protection safeguards sensitive components from short-circuits, electrical surges and similar risks. It includes ASUS DIGI+ VRM (voltage-regulator module) to ensure a smooth power supply to the processor, overcurrent protection to prevent short circuits damaging the RAM, electrostatic-discharge (ESD) guards, high-quality solid-state capacitors and corrosion-resistant input/output (I/O) shields - a combination of technologies that provide the very best reliability and durability.

USB 3.0 Boost with UASP Mode accelerates the already-fast speed of USB 3.0, intelligently optimizing transfer commands so that more data can be sent and received in shorter times than is possible with other motherboards.

The new ASUS motherboards also include a brilliantly easy-to-use UEFI BIOS that presents a friendly graphical interface, allowing users to set up shortcuts and favorites for quick access to the options that are used most often. They also benefit from AI Suite 3, an exclusive ASUS dashboard-style control panel that lets users fine-tune almost every aspect of an AM1M-A- or AM1I-A-based system for the best balance between performance, stability and efficiency - all via a simple and intuitive interface.

My thoughts exactly. One of them small µ-ATX or even mini-ITX boards with 6 sata ports would be perfect for a small server.

[EDIT]: Eeh... Scratch that, they don't support ECC. Don't know much about servers, but after doing research on building a NAS from the ground up, I found out that ECC matters for ZFS.

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I've yet to read this. I know that ZFS doesn't require ECC memory, I know a handful of people that use it on say, an Atom box without an issue.

ZFS might write ECC so it can correct corrupted data from the disk, but I don't think it requires ECC memory. Requiring ECC would be more of a requirement for a stable machine imho because if bits in memory are flipping, the machine is unstable anyways.

I've yet to read this. I know that ZFS doesn't require ECC memory, I know a handful of people that use it on say, an Atom box without an issue.

ZFS might write ECC so it can correct corrupted data from the disk, but I don't think it requires ECC memory. Requiring ECC would be more of a requirement for a stable machine imho because if bits in memory are flipping, the machine is unstable anyways.

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That's right, ZFS doesn't need ECC memory. But then, so many people on FreeNAS's forums say that if you don't have ECC memory, you're going to run into trouble. I may have misunderstood the warning though, and the issue lies at the machine level, as you put it.

QNAP and other storage vendors might develop some turnkey and bare-bones AM1 solutions because they buy their controllers and port multipliers in large quantities. For us Joe can't-buy-a-thousand-at-time Shmoes looking to go beyond 4 devices the FM2 platform seems like a better choice. My A8-5500 + mATX combo will cost me about $150, but this can be cut down by using a cheaper APU and get much closer to the estimated $60 an AM1 solution will cost. That'll give me 8-ports and open PCIe slots if I feel like expanding in the future.

Now, if you've already invested in a controller, this might work out nicely.